"I am."
"You have placed me--unwillingly, I know--in a very painful position," said Daisy; "for it is really painful to me to have to say or do anything which I feel would give you pain."
"Don't say any more," he said in a hoarse voice; "I can guess your meaning perfectly. Don't say any more."
"But, Mr. Merton, you must hear me--you must understand----"
"I do understand that you say 'no' to what I asked you; that you reject my suit--I believe that is the proper society phrase! I don't want to know," continued he, with a sudden outburst of passion, "of the esteem in which you hold me, and the recollection which you will always have of the delicacy of my behaviour towards you. I know the rubbish with which it is always thought necessary to gild the pill in similar cases; but I'd rather be without it."
"You are becoming incoherent, and I can scarcely follow you," said Daisy, setting her lips and looking very stony. "I don't think I was going to say anything of the kind that you seem to have anticipated. I don't see that I have laid myself open to rudeness because I have been compelled to tell you it didn't suit me to marry you; and as to our being friends hereafter, I really don't think that there is the remotest chance of such a thing."
"I must again beg your pardon, Miss Stafford," said John, taking off his hat--he was quite calm now--"and I will take care that I don't commit myself in any similar ridiculous manner. I am perfectly aware that our lines in life lie very wide apart, and after the decision which you have arrived at and just communicated to me, I can only be glad that it is so; and though we are not to be friends, you say, I shall always have the deepest regard for you. You cannot prevent that, even if you would; and I only trust that some day I may have the chance of proving the continuance of that regard by being able to serve you."
He stopped, bowed, and was striding rapidly away back on the way they had traversed, before Daisy could speak to him.
"More quickly over than I had anticipated," she thought to herself, "and less painful too. I expected at one time there would have been a scene. His face lights up wonderfully when he is in earnest, and if his figure and manner were only as good, he might do. I wonder whether I could put up with him if neither of those two other men had been upon the cards; perhaps so, in a foreign place, such as he talked of going to, where one could have made one's own world and one's own society, and broken with all the old associations. How dreadful his boots were, by-the-way! I don't think it would have been possible to have passed one's life recognised as belonging to such feet and boots."
By this time she had reached Middle Temple Lane, down which she was proceeding, to the great admiration of the barristers' and attorneys' clerks who were flitting about that sombre neighbourhood. After a little difficulty and a great deal of inquiry she found the Seldon Buildings; and arriving at the second floor, and knocking at the portal inscribed Mr. John Wilson, she rather started when the door was opened to her by Colonel Orpington.